And why? Simply because Israel has relied not on faith but on what they could do. They have stumbled over the stone that makes men stumble ??33 as it is written, Here I lay a stone in Sion that will make men stumble, even a rock to trip them up; but he who believes in Him will never be disappointed.

a stone over which men stumble and a rock of offence; they stumble over it in their disobedience to God's word. Such is their appointed doom.

So let us stop criticizing one another; rather make up your mind never to put any stumbling-block or hindrance in your brother's way.

You must not break down God's work for the mere sake of food! Everything may be clean, but it is wrong for a man to prove a stumbling-block by what he eats;

the right course is to abstain from flesh or wine or indeed anything that your brother feels to be a stumbling-block.

but our message is Christ the crucified ??a stumbling-block to the Jews, 'sheer folly' to the Gentiles,

But see that the exercise of your right does not prove any stumbling-block to the weak.

Put no stumbling-block in the way of Jews or Greeks or the church of God.

I am 'still preaching circumcision myself,' am I? Then, brothers, why am I still being persecuted? And so the stumbling-block of the cross has lost its force, forsooth!

and all drank the same supernatural drink (drinking from the supernatural Rock which accompanied them ??and that Rock was Christ),